On Demand Economy

Nov

Everything is ‘on-demand’ these days. Somehow everything became available and scalable through the internet. There is no longer any need to invest heavily on capital, as things are focused now on the service side of the business. You essentially pay as you go, which allows everyone to have access to absolutely anything and everything. Publish your own book without the need to order thousands of copies, keep an endless stock of hundreds of different graphic T’s without having a warehouse, there is no limitation for entrepreneurial activity these days.

On Demand Talent

The employment landscape is also shifting with the fast-paced technology. The freelance market for technology based services is definitely on the rise. With so many video and productivity apps in the market, there is less need for people to be physically in the same office. This, however, implies that a new set of abilities and skills is required to manage a team and tasks.

“According to the IT staffing firm Mondo, 73 percent of CIOs are using contractors for tasks such as app development or programming. And as full-time IT hiring slows, the firm surveyed 200 IT decision makers, 48 percent of whom reported they planned to add more contractors than full-time staff over the next 12 to 18 months.”

“The freelance marketplace approach is clearly here to stay,” says Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer, a global payment service that has worked with companies such as oDesk. “This is a permanent addition [and] change to how this industry operates and many companies are seeing the cost and productivity benefits. We’ve seen tremendous growth for our customers in this space — showing this is one way that businesses will continue to staff diverse needs around the world.”

On Demand & Consumer Behavior

For slow moving industries such as transportation, grocery and restaurants- they are now experiencing a substantial boom. Transportation has become incredibly efficient and on demand through services like Uber. Restaurants are now subject to unprecedented scrutiny through Trip Advisor and Yelp; and let’s not forget the badges and promos from Foursquare when it was in it’s prime. Grocery shopping has become incredibly convenient as well, never forget ingredients by taking your apps with your fave recipes, or let them tell you when you’re next shopping trip is due. Ordering online has never been so easy, especially with giants like Amazon.

“The internet makes human desires more easily attainable. In other words, it offers convenience. Convenience on the internet is basically achieved by two things: speed, and cognitive ease. If you study what the really big things on the internet are, you realize they are masters at making things fast and not making people think.” — Ev Williams, Twitter co-founder